I went to Krakow, Poland last week. I had to get up at 6am to do it too. It takes anywhere from 7-9 hours to drive from Budapest to Krakow by bus. Annnnnd guess how many miles away Krakow is??? Hmm? less than 300. Crazy! But once you drive North and hit Slovakia, there is no highway, all you have his a narrow, two lane road the twists and winds through the hills. And Slovakia is really hilly. On the bus, I was so tired. I kept sleeping, waking up, sleeping, waking up... And I kept having this dream/weird semi-awake thought that I was looking for the Slovankian NHL players' houses and wondering if they had once been where I was now. Weird. I dreamed I was about to meet Tomas Kopecky's and Marian Hossa's families, but i woke up before I could. Haaahaha and at a gas station I found a magazine with Miro Satan on the cover looking all prettied up. Can't stand that guy.
Anyway, 8 hours later we arrived in Krakow. There was some time for us to go exploring, and we hit up the market. I had never seen so much cheap amber jewelry in my life. It was really pretty too. Don't worry, I bought some. The part of Krakow we were in was very nice, clean, old-ish, and rockin. There were bars, clubs, cafes, restaurants, shops, and people everywhere. And the main square in Krakow is HUGE! I think I heard it was the biggest square in Europe? I'd believe it. Looming over the square is St. Mary's Basilica. It was gorgeous. That's the church that the famous Trumpeter of Krakow plays from, if you've heard that story.
I'll tell that story anyway! I hadn't heard it before I went there, so you might not have either. Hundreds of years ago, when Krakow was still the capital of Poland, the city was mostly made of wood and Poland had to watch out for many enemies coming to invade, like the Tartars. So it was the job of the trumpeter to sit in the highest point of the city, which was at the top of the Basilica, and keep watch for fires or invaders and when he saw anything he had to start ringing the bells to warn the city. Also he was supposed to play a hymnal in each direction on the hour. Well one night, the Tartars decided to invade, and the trumpeter was this boy who started ringing the bells and then playing the hymnal. Right before he finished the hymnal, like on the third to last note, he was shot and killed by the invaders. So now, the trumpeter always leaves off on the broken note that the other was killed playing, the hymn never gets finished. It was really cool to hear that.
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| Market |
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| St. Mary's Basilica |
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| Trumpeter of Krakow! |
The next day, we took a tour of the castle, of St. Mary's Basilica, of the old town, and of the Jewish quarter. That's where I found dinner with Erika and Laurel. Polish food has got to be some of the most filling food I have ever eaten! I was full just looking at it. I tried this beet soup that had a kind of ravioli in it and pierogi, which is a thin dumpling thing stuffed with potato and cheese and a little cabbage. Ohmygoodness I need to go back for more. The three of us found a cute little bar that night too. It was underground and in a part of the town that we were pretty sure not too many tourists would hit up, so we think we found a good local place. It had fabulous hot wine. Have I mentioned the hot wine yet? Wow. I'm going to make it when I get home, don't worry.
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| Castle |
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| Marcel, our program director, and a dragon |
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| Pope John Paul II, cuz he was Polish! |
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| castle |
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| heads on the ceiling of the thrown room hahah |
We went back to the hotel kind of early with the intention of going to bed kind of early because we had to get up kind of early to leave for Auschwitz, and no one wanted to be feeling zoned out for that tour, if only out of respect for the place. But of course I stayed up with Erika and Laurel in their room, since Kinga, my roommate for the weekend, had already gone to bed. We watch this Polish soap opera. Oh man. It was in English, but it had this voice over in Polish. And the voice over was a man...doing the voices for every character...even the girls... It was probably one of the more funny things I've seen this whole trip.
Ok the next morning, I heard another funny story. One of the French guys got home and went into the wrong room and tried to go to bed. Oops! That sounds like something that would happen to my brother. Anyway, we left early on the bus to go to Auschwitz, which is a town about an hour south west from Krakow that unfortunately is home to one of the biggest concentration camps. I couldn't have had a more sobering day. the place just looked... I don't know, I can't think of a word to describe it. On the outside, some of the buildings looked like they could have been normal apartment buildings in the US, but the amount of barbed wire all over... I don't know, it was really unsettling. We walked through a lot of displays that just.. they showed things that shouldn't have ever happened. One room was completely full of plaits of hair that had been cut off women. Another room was lined on either side with enormous piles of shoes. Another with suitcases... glasses... kitchen items and dish sets that women had tried to take, thinking they were simply being relocated... Baby clothes. We learned that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a death camp, and not all camps were death camps. The only thing that made a camp classified as such was a gas chamber. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, people were gassed upon arrival if they were put into the wrong group when they got off the train. We went into one of the gas chambers. Stupid stupid invention. There are few things in this world more senseless than that. The Birkenau part of the camp was even worse. It's gas chambers had been destroyed, but the ruins were still there. At this part of the camp, you could see where three trains at once could be brought in full of people. The barracks to sleep in were made of wood, the beds looked like they could fall down and crush people on the lower bunks (which happened), and it was just so big...
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| Work Makes You Free |
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| Infamous Birkenau Gate |
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| The Memorial |
On the way back on the bus, we watched a short film about a man who escaped from Auschwitz. He and three others were somehow able to sneak out as a fake work group, get a hold of some German uniforms, and a car (one of the prisoners was the main mechanic) and they just drove away. It was hard to watch though, because that man just had the roughest life, his youth completely stolen. After the war, the communists put him in jail for 10 years. Devestating story. But he and his wife travel and volunteer a lot now, so.. It's good he got a chance to live. The whole day until that point had been depressing, I really felt like all the happiness had been sucked out. The next film we watched then was Disney's 101 Dalmations. hahaha
It was a really great trip overall. I got to hang out with a lot of the European students who I rarely get to see. I just wish we'd had this trip earlier in the semester so I could have had a chance to meet everyone sooner!
Theennnn the following night, the French girls hosted a dinner :-) They made yummy yummy crepesssss omg I love crepes! Most of the people from the Krakow trip were there, so I had another chance to get to know them. I ended up staying there with them way too late... 2am on a Sunday night? But it was so worth it! :-D 
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